GameBanshee Forums

@Anatres and Loner72...I have say, you and most of the rest have kept it civil. This is a topic that can get out of hand.

@weasel; thank you. I try.

Originally posted by hermetic:
<STRONG>@loner72:
@EMINEM: Hey man, I'm sorry for you too but for different reasons. I understand that you've been flamed many times in the past, etc. and that you can take it, but dear God, you are worthy of nothing more than a big fat old fashioned flame: You are a clown.
</STRONG>

Like I said, there's nothing here I haven't heard before. Compared to what I get from my harsher critics, you are pretty tame.

Oh yeah, if you actually read to the end of my post, I wrote that I was just quoting Jesus. If you have a problem with immortality, hell, and judgement, take it to him, not to me. I'm just the messenger.

<clamps hands firmly over his mouth and steps away from the keyboard>

Notice before a war breaks out here, please remember Buck doesn't like it and will close this thread. If you can't be civil ,don't post

Originally posted by EMINEM:
<STRONG>
Like I said, there's nothing here I haven't heard before. Compared to what I get from my harsher critics, you are pretty tame.

Oh yeah, if you actually read to the end of my post, I wrote that I was just quoting Jesus. If you have a problem with immortality, hell, and judgement, take it to him, not to me. I'm just the messenger.</STRONG>

@Anatres -- No no no, I wasn't referring to you. I don't see that you've insulted anyone; you've reasserted your beliefs against an insult directed at you. That's bound to make a person emotional. Opposing views are indeed vital to this thread. That's why I started it in the first place -- so we could all have a place to hash things out in a friendly manner. I was referring to the recent hell-sending, arrogance, and personal insults. Because of all that I can see the topic going in a poor direction, and only hope it can straighten itself out by people being willing to avoid flaming each other and asserting their own views as Dead Right and all others as Dead Wrong. There's a difference between being firm in a belief and condemning those who don't share it...

Know what I mean? Now I'll quit rambling...

Originally posted by Anatres:
<STRONG><clamps hands firmly over his mouth and steps away from the keyboard></STRONG>

*claps Anatres on the back*

I'm proud of you

@loner72; Yes, I know what you mean. And you're not rambling (at least no more than I do ).

IMO, life, knowledge and personal growth are usually the outcome of spirited debate. And you are right, when it becomes bigoted it is no longer constructive and therefore destructive. No one learns in that environment.

This has been, for the most part, a very informative thread. Full of intelligent information and insight. But perhaps it has run its course.

Now I will stop rambling.....

[ 05-17-2001: Message edited by: Anatres ]
EDIT2: Wish my internal dictionary would keep up with my fingers better.....

[ 05-17-2001: Message edited by: Anatres ]

On to business...

Originally posted by Nightfire:
<STRONG>Not quite. First, as I said, I do not take kindly to extortion (and no matter how much people try to whitewash it, that's what "believe or burn" is). And second, I wouldn't buy the "Hellfire insurance" just as I wouldn't buy an insurance against Alien infestation (you know, the acid-for-blood kind from those fabulous movies with the even more fabulous Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley).

Just because someone has thought up an outrageous idea of what could happen doesn't mean you have any serious reason to act accordingly. For example, I don't suppose you're chasing rainbows just in case some leprechaun's buried a pot of gold at the end, right?</STRONG>

Your idea of extortion is much looser then mine. Just because someone makes an argument and weighs the pros and cons doesn’t mean he’s an extortionist. Most people don’t find Pascal’s words the least bit threatening. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Damnit, that cruel bastard is just trying to scare me into believing! The thug!” But this is not a winnable argument since we, as human beings, are inclined to feel threatened by whatever we want. I don’t feel Pascal is trying to intimidate people, but that’s just my viewpoint. You of course are entitled to yours.

Originally posted by Nightfire:
<STRONG>That's not a plus in my book.</STRONG>

Nor mine, but people are people, and they don't usually want to make changes in their lifestyle without some form of incentive (be it medicine in poorer countries, or what have you).

Originally posted by Nightfire:
<STRONG>See, that's the problem. If a Christian tries using PW or similar "arguments" in order to convert an outsider, he or she cannot expect that the other person will take Christian axioms for granted. Quite to the contrary: the would-be evangelist must "think outside the box" and first demonstrate ... without invoking those axioms (to avoid the fallacy of circular reasoning) ... why his/her religion should be given any special consideration over all the others.

If a believer cannot do that, then I think any kind of meaningful conversation just isn't possible because he'll basically be speaking one language while the other person is speaking a different one.

Again, let me repeat my mantra that if you want to talk to (or especially convert) an outsider, you must put your opinions and taken-for-granted concepts of faith aside long enough to listen to and understand the other's position, or you'll simply talking at, not to, each other. </STRONG>

Pascal’s Wager isn’t a guide for conversion; it’s a reason to stop being an atheist. Like I said before, if you’re already a Buddhist or a Muslim then you already have your own set of beliefs, and thus you agree with Pascal on the atheism vs. faith debate. I recommend the Wager for people who are atheists, not for people from another religion whom you want to convert. In fact Muslims could use the Wager to convince atheists to believe in their faith with little tinkering to Pascal’s words. Don’t look to Pascal’s Wager as a debate on why ‘Christianity is the best’ or something, instead view it as a reason why faith in some form or another is good. That’s all Pascal is saying. That’s it’s worth believing in something.

Originally posted by Nightfire:
<STRONG>I wouldn't buy a fire insurance from someone who's pointing a flamethrower at my head.</STRONG>

Again I fail to see how Pascal is pointing a metaphorical flamethrower at your head. He’s not saying ‘join or burn fool!’ he’s saying if you don’t believe you’ve lost everything, which to me at least isn’t the same thing. It’s a warning, not a threat. Even if there isn’t a hell you’d still be damned unhappy if everyone else was chilling in heaven and you weren’t.

Let's pretend Pascal is your neighbor. He says to you that if you don’t rake the dried leaves on your lawn it’s possible a brushfire could burn down your house this time of year. He’s not going to burn down your house himself, he’s just saying that if your gamble is wrong (about not wanting to rake your leaves) then you could be in trouble. So getting mad at your neighbor because he doesn’t want to see your house burned down seems a little unfair to me. Here endeth the hypothetical.

[ 05-17-2001: Message edited by: Kayless ]

I would like to know peoples view on the Darwinistic(sp?) evolution?
Especially thoese are are religious, dosen't this class severly with the concept of God creating mankind, and not God Creating say, an amoeba evolving into mankind.??

Originally posted by Kayless:
<STRONG><snip>
Pascal’s Wager isn’t a guide for conversion; it’s a reason to stop being an atheist. Like I said before, if you’re already a Buddhist or a Muslim then you already have your own set of beliefs, and thus you agree with Pascal on the atheism vs. faith debate. I recommend the Wager for people who are atheists, not for people from another religion whom you want to convert

</STRONG>

I belive if there was a God He would be deebly offended by belive sprung from such rationalization.
If a person is an atheist - I don't think it is possible to convince him to "play on the safe horse" by stateing that it seems most logical towards the "afterlife".

I belive in(hmmm ) that you always should belive in what you feel something towards - and not just because, you might or might not be condemmed at some point in time.
If I for instance was a manager at a firm, and there was a subordinate who supported me because I was his "boss" and another subordinate who supported me because he belived in my case and a third person he didn't support me, because he didn't agree with me. Then next time I looked for help/answers etc. then I wouldn't seek out the first person for his oppinion, but only use the latter 2.
(am I makeing sence?? )

[ 05-18-2001: Message edited by: Xandax ]

Originally posted by Xandax:
<STRONG>I belive if there was a God He would be deeply offended by belive sprung from such rationalization.
If a person is an atheist - I don't think it is possible to convince him to "play on the safe horse" by stateing that it seems most logical towards the "afterlife".</STRONG>

Fortunately, God is a much nicer and forgiving guy then you or I (at least according to Christian doctrine). He doesn’t get P.O.ed when people fall short of pristine behavior and doesn’t demand that saints alone worship him. As for converting, it depends on who you're talking to. Some people are atheists because of a conscious choice, others simply haven’t had anything in their lives to believe in. So appealing to their sense of logic can persuade a person to convert (the high school teacher who first taught me about Pascal’s Wager had in fact converted because of it).

Originally posted by Xandax:
<STRONG>I would like to know peoples view on the Darwinistic(sp?) evolution?
Especially thoese are are religious, dosen't this clash severly with the concept of God creating mankind, and not God Creating say, an amoeba evolving into mankind.??</STRONG>

Evolution and Christianity do not mesh well, but I do know people who believe in both. An interesting point is that evolution is still a theory since no one can confirm things that supposedly occur over millions of years. So believing in evolution is having faith in something that can't be proven, just like believing in God. I find that irony amusing.

[ 05-18-2001: Message edited by: Kayless ]

Originally posted by Kayless:
<STRONG>Evolution and Christianity do not mesh well, but I do know people who believe in both. An interesting point is that evolution is still a theory since no one can confirm things that supposedly occur over millions of years. So believing in evolution is having faith in something that can't be proven, just like believing in God. I find that irony amusing.

[ 05-18-2001: Message edited by: Kayless ]</STRONG>

You are right that there are no hard fact. But when you find fossiles of one animal, for instance a fish, then find another fossile of an animal at a later point in time, that looks like the first animal, except this one has legs also - it would be easy to concluded that the animal has evolved.
But still, this is not die hard facts - but I would still argue that this conclusion is easier to make, that to close ones eyes towards it.
Also looking at for instance the Dinosaurs outdateing man with several million years, this also collides with the christian perception of time, doesn't it??

(I've never had many discussion about religion, where people didn't get mad at me early, so this is a great oppetunity for me to expand my knowlegde )

Just to throw some useless knowledge at this debate...

In biological/scientific terms the conclusions a lot of scientists come up with about evolution are not correct if you analyze the data, this is due to only the fossils of animals with excoskeletons being found, you can not proove evolution because one does not have all the available animals and creatures that were alive 'millions of years ago'.

Also there is proof to suggest that the Earth tilted because of a meteor which created both polar icecaps, further to this there is evidence that there were to ozone layers.

There is also evidence that suggets that the Earth is only 6000 years old, there is just as much evidence to proove this as the evolution angle.

If anyone is interested in finding out more about these bizaare but possible explanations, look up a Dr Kent Hovind, some of his teachings are quite enlightening.

I think most of the old timers know my religious philosophy so i wont re-cap all my pathetic musings

Remember kiddies don't beleive everything you hear, oh and do except sweets from strangers, they are always the tastiest.

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
<STRONG><snip>There is also evidence that suggets that the Earth is only 6000 years old, there is just as much evidence to proove this as the evolution angle.
<snip></STRONG>

What is this evidence - I would be very interested in hearing these??

How does this relates to the Carbon-14 test?? and other tests of dateing that goes back millions of years?

[ 05-18-2001: Message edited by: Xandax ]

Carbon Dating is not a sure method because no one can be sure how much Carbon-14 there is in an organism before it dies, you can only extrapolate from tainted results.

I actually attended a seminar by Dr. Horvind (Dr. Dino) at my church a while back. I found his exposition very enlightening (like this topic). Just goes to show you that science and religion need not be enemies with one another.

[url="http://www.drdino.com/FAQs/index.jsp"]http://www.drdino.com/FAQs/index.jsp[/url]

Here is a link to Dr Kent Hovinds FAQ's page.

He can explain a lot better than I.

@all; glad to see this thread alive and well!

I was thinking about Pascal's Wager. I see that something close to what I was considering has already been expressed (the concept of 'hedging your bets'.

But there was another thought that I had. Pascal is (was) only one of many existentialist. If you would like (for those of you who don't know) some thoughts from some of the others go [url="http://members.aol.com/KatharenaE/private/Philo/KdaEQuotes.html"]here[/url]

Originally posted by Xandax:
<STRONG>I would like to know peoples view on the Darwinistic(sp?) evolution?
Especially thoese are are religious, dosen't this class severly with the concept of God creating mankind, and not God Creating say, an amoeba evolving into mankind.??</STRONG>

Not at all. I like to use the example of the development of a human (or other animal, for that matter) embryo. Now, I believe that God is the all-powerful Creator, and as such He can do whatever He likes. If GOd wished to, He could just "conjure" a 20 year-old human being. But He chooses to progress life in a gradual manner. As far as evolution is concerned, I believe that, as others have said, there is no way to prove the theory of natural selection; and I certainly don't believe humans were "monkeys" first (if so, why are monkeys still monkeys? )...however the fossil record is replete with evidence that life has evolved in stages. As far as I'm concerned, there is no reason at all why God could not have overseen and guided and controlled this evolutionary process as the continuing act of creation. In other words, if an amoeba evolved into mankind, it was God directing that amoeba to do so. This is the divine wisdom's way of running this world. Perhps other worlds are different according to their specific needs.

It's an interesting concept and one that i have pondered in the past, but if one is to succumb (be indoctrinated) into a specific religion they teach very exclusive principles, so your beliefs do not follow the churches (maybe a good thing )

I know for a fact that i am a more grounded human being due to my spiritual (real Christian) upbringing, i have never been forced to beleive only ushered in the right direction, which i am as of yet confused about how to arrive at, but i'll get there, eventually...